For the shoe manufacturer, the shoe marketer and the shoe consumer it is considered an advantage to have a basic design of shoe which can be used to have a substantially different appearance with only a modest expenditure.
Accordingly, various ways and means have been proposed for providing this advantage to one or more of these interests. One way that a basic design of shoe can be substantially changed in appearance is to offer it with various styles, types, colors and/or quality-grades of heel. If the various designs of heel for a basic design of shoe are permanently applied during manufacture of the shoe, then the manufacturer may be the only one to derive a substantial benefit, although the marketer and consumer may be enabled by this rationalization of the manufacturing process to afford a better grade of shoe, if some of the economy is passed on down to the marketer and consumer. It appears that a substantial majority of prior inventions in this field relate to systems in which the heels and the heel-needing shoes may be largely separately manufactured, but once assembled to one another at the factory are meant to stay assembled for the life of the shoe. In these cases the shoes are not meant to be easily provided with new or different heels either for fashion or renewal purposes. Thus, the marketers and consumers of shoes have been largely or wholly denied the benefits of being able to substantially alter the appearance of a basic design of shoe by easily selecting a heel to be assembled with a basic design of heel-needing shoe, or to exchange the existing heel with another which looks different, is newer, is higher or lower, is more elegant or more sporty, is slimmer or more blocky, is of one color or another, is made of a more or less expensive covering material, matches one wardrobe, or another, and the like.